“I have three pages of congratulatory telegrams from His Majesty
    the King downward which I will read to you, with also a very nice
    letter from our army commander, Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien.

“Now, I doubt if any divisional commander, or any division ever had so many congratulatory telegrams and messages as these, and remember they are not merely polite and sentimental ones; they express just what the senders feel.

“There is one word I would say to you before I stop.  You have made a reputation second to none gained in this war, but remember, no man can live on his reputation, he must keep on adding to it.  That you will do so I feel just as sure as I did two months ago when I told you that I knew you would make a reputation when the opportunity came.

    “I am now going to shake hands with your officers, and I do so
    wanting you to feel that I am shaking hands with each one of you,
    as I would actually do if the time permitted.

    “No—­we will not have any cheering now—­we will keep that until
    you have added to your reputation, as I know you will.”

And there was no cheering.  We turned away—­the few men of us left whole in those scattered ranks—­our eyes tear-dimmed in memory of those comrades whose lives had gone out; but our hearts ready to answer the call wherever it might lead us.

The world to-day knows what the Canadian boys have done.  We have more than added to our reputation.

Right after this terrible scrap at Ypres came Givenchy and Festubert, and then we held the line at Ploegsteert for a whole year, fighting fiercely at St. Eloi, and stopping them again at Sanctuary Wood.

In the summer of 1916 fourteen thousand of us went down before German cannon, but still they did not break our lines.  This was known as the third battle of Ypres.

From Ypres we went to the Somme, and it was on the Somme that we met our Australian cousins who jokingly greeted us with the statement “We’re here to finish what you started,” and we fired back, “Too bad you hadn’t finished what you started down in Gallipoli!”

It was not very long before both were engaged in that terrible battle of the Somme, where to Canadian arms fell the honor of taking the village of Courcellette.  We plugged right on and soon we put the “Vim” into Vimy, and took Vimy Ridge.  As I write we are marking time in front of Lens.

At Ypres we started our great casualty lists with ten thousand.  To-day over one hundred twenty-five thousand Canadian boys have fallen, and there are over eighteen thousand who will never come back to tell their story.

If the generals of the British Army were proud of us in 1915, I wonder how they feel to-day?

CHAPTER XIV

“THE BEST O’ LUCK—­AND GIVE ’EM HELL!”

Imagine a bright crisp morning in late September.  The sun rises high and the beams strike with comforting warmth even into the fire-trench where we gather in groups to catch its every glint.